Unpredictable and uncanny, the exhibition trawls through Bowie’s career while also seeking to contextualize him and his influences. From crinkled loose-leaf etched with song lyrics to a typed letter formally announcing Bowie’s name change from Jones to Bowie—in an effort to distinguish the musician from the Monkees’ Davy Jones—to a J. G. Ballard quote stenciled across the wall, it presents as full a picture of the man as is likely achievable.

“It’s epic,” Laura Carmichael, or as we know her better, Lady Edith, described upon exiting the exhibition. “It’s really fantastic to be in there with the headset, listening to the music as you walk through. You feel like you’re at a gig in certain parts. It’s really moving,” she added, referring to the final room, where iconic costumes stand in a dollhouse-like frame behind floor-to-ceiling silk screens projected with concert footage papering the perimeter—all while the show’s soundtrack bellows through the viewer’s earphones.

“Everyone is just in love with him, whether its our parents’ generation or ours. I sang David Bowie in a Chekhov play [Three Sisters at London’s Young Vic]. He’s just so universal,” said actress Vanessa Kirby, flanked by her actor boyfriend, Douglas Booth. Booth himself—with his cerulean eyes and pronounced cheekbones—is poised for universal adoration when his Julian Fellowes-penned portrayal of Romeo alongside Hailee Steinfeld as Juliet comes out later this year. “It was so amazing to see the costumes and then see him performing in the costumes onstage to hear the music simultaneously,” said Booth. “I played Boy George in a [BBC] biopic about his life, and I was obsessed with Bowie during the making of that—and still am—so it was really magical to see it tonight.”